Sunday, October 18, 2009

Reception for a lost loved one

As I said a few days ago, one of my customers lost his wife. I wasn't really sure whether it was my kindly gentleman or not. I was 95% sure but not 100%. I had made up my mind a long time ago that if his wife died I wanted to see him and offer condolences.

I have been watching the paper for weeks and then one day last week I caught the notice in the paper. As an aside, I had been at work about two weeks ago waiting to go in to start work. I saw my gentle man get out of his car and was going to go talk to him. But something about his posture made me stop. He just was walking different. Its hard to describe, but I remember thinking that something had happened. I watched the papers and didn't see anything. Then last Thursday I saw the notice about his wife passing. As I said I wasn't sure, but did some internet research and tried to figure it out.

I found that the address listed for his unique name was not far from the store and that one of the children's names was one I recognized. He had brought his daughter in shopping with him one day and went out of his way to introduce her to me. (very sweet of him)

My final thing was to trade away my shift today as I was determined to go to the reception and see if it was him. I got there and asked someone there if they could point him out to me so I could be sure. Sadly, it was him. I went over and he was talking to another lady. His back was to me. The lady looked at me and said hi and my older gentleman turned. The smile on his face was amazing. He was so touched when he saw it was me. He hugged me and thanked me for coming and then wiped tears from his eyes.

You know, the absolute best feeling in the world is to do something nice for someone else. I felt so good when he hugged me. I did this for him. As I said, I had made up my mind to be there for him if the time ever came. It turns out he has talked to his daughter and caregiver about me. They knew who I was and were so touched that I came there for him.

I wish I could put into words what I feel for this man. There are so many similarities between him and my Dad. I told him I loved him and kissed his cheek and before I left gave him a kiss on the nose. He kept telling me how happy he was that I came.

How could I not?

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